Founding
by Historicals
Summary: Based on the founding of Kugelmugel. If you have any suggestions for historical events, leave them as a review or send me a private message.


Ten weeks in prison had been more than enough for Edwin. Thank god the Austrian president had pardoned him, he'd had just about enough of prison hospitality. Of course, in that time his entire house had been moved to Prater Park without his consent, which was rather inconvenient. Not only that, but his plumbing and electricity had been cut off completely, not like he had anything special to begin with. Now he sat at a desk alone in the one-room sphere he had worked so hard to be able to build, with candles burning around him and a glass of water sitting beside him as he put the final details on a piece he had been working on before being sent to prison. Even though he had a job in Vienna he had to start working on making money for himself. And he would do that the only way he knew how. He would sell art.

He stretched and checked his watch. Nearly midnight. Perhaps bed would be a good idea. He stood, pushing his chair back and moving to the window to close the drapes, making a quick sweep of his private property before pulling the blinds shut. Just before he pulled the fabric across the window, he stopped. There was someone outside, just beyond the fence, sitting on the ground hunched over something that he couldn't make out in the gloom of the night. He narrowed his eyes at the figure, trying to decide what he was going to do. The little figure raised its head for a second, then looked back down at whatever it was doing. It was then that Edwin realized that the little figure was doing some sketching for itself. This was private property, there couldn't be people sketching his house in the middle of the night! He wasn't sure why he was so opposed to it, but figured that it was his duty as President to protect his property and opened the window.

"Hey! You! What are you doing?" he shouted.

The figure looked up again, then jumped to its feet excitedly. It sprinted around the side of the house and before long there was a knock at Edwin's door. He sighed and opened it to reveal a little girl with the same silhouette as the figure drawing his house. Sure enough, there was a sketch pad and pencil clutched tightly in her hands. She was practically bouncing with excitement.

"Can I help you?" Edwin asked, taking her appearance in. She was dressed very strangely, like she had stepped out of a renaissance painting, but the artist had been experimenting a little too much with colours. She had orange leggings under bright purple pants that only went down to her knees, what were they called? Pumpkin pants? The layers led to black boots that were wide around the ankles. She wore a purple stripped shirt and a white vest with a little gold button on it and a little black tie, almost like a boy would wear. Why was she wearing boys clothes? The entire ensemble was topped off with a red beret with a second pin on it. He realized the pins had the crest for his country on them, the sketch he had been working on before he was sent to prison. How did she manage that? He wasn't even done with it yet. Her white hair was short in the front, though in the back there were two long braids that went nearly down to her knees. That was odd, white hair for someone so young. She couldn't have been more than nine of ten, no taller than four feet. She was probably the most adorable, but somehow most abstract child he had ever seen. Why was someone so innocent here in the middle of the night?

"Are you Mr. Lipburger?" she asked in a voice that was a little too low for a girl, but not out of the ordinary.

"Yes, is there something you need?"

"You're the President of Kugelmugel?"

"Yes."

The girl beamed and grabbed his hand, shaking it vigourously. "I'm Kugelmugel too! Künstler Edelstien!"

Edwin blinked, pulling his hand away. Though it probably wasn't the logic progression, the only think he could think to say in the presence of such an energetic force was, "Künstler is a boys name."

'Künstler' looked at him curiously. "Yeah."

"But- you're a girl."

She frowned. "No I'm not."

Edwin looked him- her- it- over quickly once again. Alright. He could see it. He didn't know why, but he could. Then it sunk in. "Wait, what do you mean you're Kugelmugel too? Kugelmugel is my _country_."

"Micro-nation actually. But country is fine too. Can I come in? I want to see how artistic the inside is."

Edwin nearly stepped aside for the boy/girl/thing but caught himself. "Look, you didn't answer my question. What do you mean, you're Kugelmugel too?"

"Just let me in! I want to see what my country looks like on the inside! Do you have lots of paintings? Did you paint them yourself?"

The two of them began an awkward dance in the doorway, with Künstler trying to get in and Edwin determined to keep him out. After nearly two minutes, Edwin had enough. He grabbed the boy's shoulders and knelt so they were face to face. "It's after midnight. I don't know why you're here but it's dangerous at night for people your size. You should probably go home."

"I'm _trying_ to go home but you're not letting me in," said the boy. He crossed his arms, sticking out his bottom lip. "I'm going to sit right here until you let me in." He sank to the ground and sat cross-legged, his sketch pad placed almost reverently in his lap.

Edwin sighed but wasn't about to give in. Letting little boys into his house was not a good idea, no matter what. "Alright, suit yourself." He slammed the door. He barely heard the small, tentative knock as he retreated to his bed.

He had been having a lovely dream, a dream that didn't involve strange little girl-boys or the Austrian prison. And it was rudely interrupted at 8:27 AM by an odd scratching noise.

He struggled into consciousness and was immediately greeted by a blinding flash of sunlight through the window that he forgot to cover last night. He moaned, covering his face with the pillow and trying to go back to sleep. The scratches continued, coming from the door. He would never be able to go back to sleep with those noises, now that he knew they were there. Shielding his eyes, he stood and walked over to the door, expecting a stray dog looking for food or maybe a cat doing the same. When he opened it, instead of an animal he got a young Künstler Edelstien jumping away from the door as it swung outward, a very worn down stick of charcoal in his hand and a dull pencil behind his ear. His sketch pad sat on the doorstep, looking throughly used.

"You're still here?" Edwin nearly shouted, surprise etched on his face. The boy smiled anxiously and toyed with the charcoal bit, looking away.

"Well, yeah. This is my country. I can't really leave. Well, I could. But, I don't wanna go back to Austria. He doesn't appreciate visual art. And doesn't let me draw while he's playing piano. He claims I'm distracting."

Edwin rubbed his eyes. Last night had been too late for this madness. Now it was too early. "No, this is _my_ country. I'm the President and only citizen. Wait- were you here all night?"

Künstler nodded. "I was drawing." He held up the charcoal.

"_All night_?"

Another nod. "Wanna see?" He bent down before Edwin could protest and picked up his sketch pad, opening it. "See, here's one of the house." He turned a page. "And here's the house from a different angle, and then I drew the door, the grain in the wood is _really_ nice, it was hard to get it right, and here's you-"

"What!?" Edwin snatched the sketch pad from Künstler, who continued talking a mile a minute, uninterrupted. He saw a remarkable image on him sleeping on the paper, and while it was a little creepy that the boy had drawn it, it was a beautiful image.

"I had to look through a window for that one. It was tricky, but I climbed on the fence and drew the outline, which was really hard one-handed. I was holding onto the fence with the other. I did the detailing mostly from memory, but had to climb back onto the fence every once and a while to get a better look. I got creative after that, I was feeling inspired, then ran out of paper, so I started drawing on the door. I was just doing the shading when you opened it…" Künstler continued as Edwin examined the picture he had drawn, oblivious to the amazement of the older man. Every crease in the blanket, the nails in the wood on the floor, every wrinkle on his face, everything was done in immaculate detail. He had done this by memory? He flipped to the drawings of the house. They looked like they had been slaved over for hours, they could have been photographs, but he claimed to have drawn them in one night. Less than one night, considering that he had used up all of the paper in the sketch pad. And the images he had thought up himself were outlandish, but beautiful, intricate combinations of abstract, expressionism, surrealism and every other form of art he could possibly imagine. Such a talent for one so young, it blew him away.

He stepped outside and closed the door to check it, bracing himself for whatever vision the boy had come up with to decorate his door, pushing the boy gently aside. He seemed to have run out of things to say. Edwin let out a breath as soon as he saw the door. On it was a pencil and charcoal drawing of a powerful-looking Chinese-style dragon that was half shaded-in. He had said he had been 'shading'. "How did you do all this at night with no light?"

"Street lights. I started on the door when the sun was rising, so I didn't need them."

Edwin shook his head to clear it. "Um, you've been out all night. Do you want something to eat…? I have some… cereal?"

"That'd be nice, yeah," said Künstler happily, mostly just so he could see the inside of his country. Edwin opened the door and let him in, not entirely sure of why he did, though he had gained more respect for the child. He was hardly five feet in before he stopped, gazing about in awe of the images that Edwin had drawn and put on his walls, the only images that Edwin refused to sell. Edwin walked past him, oblivious to the boys wonder. He pulled a bowl out of a cabinet and a box of Cheerios out of another.

"I don't have any milk, if that's alright with you."

"Yeah, that's okay… These are amazing! I know exactly what your intent was with this one," he pointed to a landscape with a single rock in the centre of the painting. "Solitude, right?"

"Ye-yeah. Listen, can we talk?"

"Sure." Künstler turned back to the painting. and chuckled. "We won't be needing this one anymore. It's nice though." He took it down and put it against the wall, the painting hidden.

Edwin cleared his throat, jolting Künstler out of what seemed to be a trance. The young boy jogged over to him and accepted the bowl of dry Cheerios, then sat on the bed, munching on them. Edwin pulled the chair out from under the desk and sat across from him.

"You said you're Kugelmugel. What does that mean?"

Künstler scratched his head. "I guess I didn't explain myself very well last night. Mister Austria told me everything I had to tell you, but I've never seen a spherical house before! I had to draw it! I was so caught up in drawing the house that I completely forgot about everything else."

Edwin understood that feeling, but had bigger questions on his mind. "Mister Austria?"

"Yeah." Künstler leaned forward. "He told me to tell you that every country in the world has a person attached to it."

Edwin frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Every country has a person to represent them. Austria has my big brother, Mister Austria. Obviously. He likes music and cooking."

"So, there's someone for every country?"

"Yup."

"What about Germany?"

"Mister Austria wouldn't let me see Mister Germany. Apparently they don't like each other very much."

"And… so this is a… thing?"

"Mmhmm."

"Why have I never heard of this Mister Austria guy before?"

"Because he's not called Mister Austria to the everyone else. Only in meetings and stuff and to leaders of the country. He likes to use it casually though. Called me Kugelmugel a lot, I told him my name is Künstler! It's the most appropriate name for me! But he never used it. I guess everyone's different. But regular people don't call him Austria. I bet most regular people wouldn't even recognize him. You probably know him as Rodrich Edelstien. That's much less artistic than 'Austria', don't you think?"

"Alright, so…"

"Mister Austria is the personification of everything that is Austrian. And I am the personification of everything that is… Kugelmugelian? I like that, it sounds artsy."

"Oh. That makes… Sense… So, you're obsessed with art because…?"

"You're an artist! And a really good one too, I think you're my favourite. Mister Austria showed me a lot of different artists, but I like your stuff the best."

"Oh, that's, nice."

"Austria said you'd have trouble believing it. Um, could I have some more paper? I want to do some drawing. I'm bored." He picked up one of the Cheerios out of the bowl and examined it, like he was trying to decipher what made it a Cheerio. Edwin frowned, nodded, and stood. He wasn't sure how he felt about the boy, but it seemed like he wasn't going to be leaving any time soon. It was hard to believe, this country/people stuff, but then why did he believe it? Perhaps being the President of Kugelmugel was going to be a lot more interesting than he originally thought.


End file.
